During the Web design process, it's just as necessary that you remain available in order to provide input and make requests. Here are some things you can do to help your Web designer during the Web design process.
- Familiarize yourself with the general Web design process itself. Most designers should make this clear for you and provide you with a time-line or at least have this information ready for you to read.
- If possible, have all of your site content ready before the design process starts. This will help your designers determine how the site design should be laid out while they are working on your design concept.
- Respond to requests in a timely manner. This is very important so that the project can keep rolling so that the due date doesn't get set back.
- Make sure you ask questions if you don't understand something. It's always easier to fix something earlier rather than later. Make sure you keep yourself available in case the designer has questions for you too!
- Communicate in a clear manner. State what you would like done and answer questions as thoroughly, but clearly as you can, especially when you need to give instructions or change requests.
Example of bad feedback: "I'm not feeling this, can it be more sexy?"
Example of good feedback: "My readers are people from the ages of 20-25. What can we do to alter the design to target them better?" - Offer problems, not solutions. This one is a real biggie. When you don't feel something is right or would like the site to accomplish something in particular, state the problem to the designer and ask what solutions are available. Very often, projects fail because clients insist on a sub-par solution when another solution could have been much more effective. After all, you are paying an expert to help find the best solutions for you and you should take advantage of this.